Retro Revisited: Double Dragon (Arcade)

Of all the coin-op classics to grace the arcades in the late 1980s, there is one in particular that I remember more fondly than any other.

Upon entering any arcade, I would always make a point of searching for existence for this particular game. Much like a celestial body caught in the body of a planet’s gravitational field, the lure of this title proved near-irresistible, and I would rush off in the cabinet’s general direction, my parents quickly losing sight of me among the neon-phosphor glow of pulsating CRT displays and throngs of unkempt youths, all busy pumping money in the rows of machines.

The subject of my childhood infatuation was Double Dragon, a side-ways scrolling beat ’em up created by Yoshihisa Kishimoto, developed by Technos, and released into the arcades in 1988. It was created as a successor to the company’s earlier beat ‘em up, Nekketsu Kouha Kunio-kun (better known as Renegade in western territories), and while the two games share very similar DNA, Double Dragon is very much a refinement of the template set out by it’s parent.

Featuring improved graphics, better sound, as well as an art style and locale more suited to an international audience, it would raise the bar in terms of what gamers could expect from a side-scrolling fighting game, at least until the arrival of Capcom’s Final Fight in 1989. The game proved to be incredibly popular, resulting in two official sequels, various licensed spin-offs and mash-ups for consoles and SNK’s Neo-Geo platform, as well as home conversions for just about every home computer and gaming system available at the time of release – more on these later!

The game stars twin brothers Billy and Jimmy Lee (Hammer and Spike in the US release), a pair of prodigious martial artists who have crossed paths with the Black Warriors, a notorious street gang that controls criminal activities in the city. In an act of revenge for interfering in their affairs, the gang decides to pay the brothers a visit at their home.

Having deposited a coin and started the game, the player is treated to a short introductory sequence that shows the kidnapping of Billy’s girlfriend, Marian. In a moment of truly unchivalrous behaviour, the lead gang walks up to the girl, proceeding to deliver a crushing blow to the gut – accompanied by bass-heavy thud – before hoisting her on to his shoulders and wandering off.

Following the disturbance, the roller door to the Lee brother’s abode opens up, and, accompanied by a farewell roar from the engine of their faithful hot-rod, Billy and Jimmy embark on a mission to rescue Marian, and to exact their revenge on Willy, leader of the gang.

Set across five levels, the brothers must fight their way through five stages of fighting action that include inner-city slums, abandoned factories, and secluded forests, before engaging in a final showdown with the Shadow Boss in his mountain-top hideout. Progressing through each stage is as simple as walking to the right of screen, then proceeding to beat down anyone and anything that gets in your way.

If you care to read the documentation that accompanies certain versions of the game, it becomes apparent that the various enemies that you encounter have been given names not too dissimilar to the cast of characters featured in the classic Bruce Lee movie, Enter the Dragon.

This proves to be less of a coincidence than you might think. In an interview with Polygon, Kishimoto describes how he wanted to draw inspiration from this film and channel it into his latest creation.

Williams and Rowper (sic) are most likely derived from the characters portrayed by Jim Kelly and John Saxon, while Abobo is almost certainly modelled on the movie’s muscle-bound under-boss, Bolo (Yang Sze). Much like his movie-based counterpart, this human juggernaut proves to be one of the most formidable foes in the game, slapping the player silly with a flurry of punches, and is more than capable of hurling players around as if they were little more than a rag-doll.

Another thing that had always puzzled me was the appearance of a bright green Abobo variation that guards the entrance to the gang’s hideout. Although I’ve yet to see it confirmed, it’s more than likely that this is an homage to Marvel Comics ‘The Incredible Hulk’.

One of the principle reasons why the game is so enjoyable is the combat. Much like Renegade before it, the player can chain together sequences of punches and kicks in a one-two combination, with the third blow activating a “finisher” in the form of an uppercut, or roundhouse kick. The move-set adds considerable variety to the gaming experience, resulting in a game far more engaging than Kung Fu Master, Vigilante, and earlier beat ‘em up titles.

Perhaps the most satisfying combination of all – something that would become a staple for all good fighting games – would be to stun your opponent with a couple of well-timed hooks, then proceeding to grab your opponent by the hair, pulling his or her head down in abrupt fashion. Unable to escape your grasp, it’s possible to drive your knee into your hapless foe’s cranium by tapping the kick button, while tapping punch executes a shoulder-throw that hurls your opponent across the screen.

Whereas Renegade’s protagonist had to rely on fists and feet exclusively, Double Dragon spices things up by throwing a variety of weapons into the mix. Enemies will occasionally be found carrying baseball bats, knives, and even a leather bull whip. Knocking the foe down will result in the weapon falling from their grasp, giving the player time to grab the item for themselves.

The game also includes heavy objects – oil drums, boxes and boulders – which can he hurled at enemies to good effect. Tapping the kick button next to one of these items results in the player striking it with their boot, sending the object sliding along the floor and toppling any adversary foolish enough to be in the way.

The machine’s crowning achievement, however, must surely be the two-player cooperative gameplay mode where you and a friend could form a tag-team of martial arts mastery dedicated to tackling the thugs and punks of the Black Warriors street gang in unison.

Although it would be double the cost to launch a cooperative game, the price of admission was well worth the additional expense – the existence of a second player meant that not only did you now have an ally to watch your back, but the game included certain moves that played to the strengths of cooperative play.

Managing to sneak up behind an enemy who has their back turned results in the player grabbing said punk, restraining him in an arm-lock. Now immobilised, the second player is free to rain blows upon the hapless opponent, or to engage in a bout of tortuous show-boating that prolongs their suffering just that little bit longer.

What came as a surprise to many players, however, was how the existence of a second player would fundamentally change the game’s ending.

Following the defeat of the Shadow Boss, Jimmy takes quite the shine to his brother’s girlfriend, and decides to challenge his brother to a showdown for her affections. Understandably aggrieved by his brother’s unwarranted advances toward his romantic partner, and with any sense of fraternal loyalty now trampled in the dust, the pair must engage in final fight to death, the victor earning Marian’s undying affections.

While the graphics and artwork look excellent, a special mention must surely go to the game’s audio design. The music that accompanies the title screen and opening level must rank among the most memorable game tunes of all time, and the sound effects help make the game even more enjoyable.

Giving your foes a good thumping results in some wonderfully satisfying thuds and crunches as fists make contact with flesh and bone, emitting bass-heavy rumbles with force sufficient to make the fillings in your teeth rattle! The raucous din of your typical arcade meant that it was almost impossible to hear the game you were actually playing, but the sound of a Double Dragon machine in action was something that could be heard above everything else.

Things are not quite perfect, unfortunately. The game is prone to bouts of sluggish performance whenever too many sprites occupy the screen at any one time, forcing the frame-rate to plummet considerably. This could be in part due to decision to use of a pair of 8-bit microprocessors to power the game board, rather than adopt a 16-bit CPU that would have been more expensive.

The second, more fundamental issue with the game relates to the enemy AI scripting, where just about every enemy in the game will try to walk up behind the player, leaving them vulnerable to a rear elbow strike.

Provided the player times the move correctly, the entire game can be cleared by relying on this single move alone, which invalidates the need to use any of the other combat moves at all – doing so merely serves to put you at risk of losing energy, jeopardising your chances of clearing the game. Although this issue would be rectified in subsequent sequels, arcade operators would hardly have been impressed at the sight of players hogging the machine for a good 30 minutes or so as they elbowed their way to victory, denying prospective punters an opportunity to play the game for themselves.

While the arcade version remains one of the best brawlers of all time, the same cannot be said for the vast majority of the home conversions in existence. I think it’s fair to say that Double Dragon received some of the worst home conversions of all time – I should know, I’ve played many of them!

This problem wasn’t exclusive to Double Dragon. Whether the result of the programmer’s ineptitude, limitations of the target hardware, or a combination of the two, the end result would often be an unplayable mess that bore scant resemblance to the original arcade version.

Some of the earlier 8-bit machines – the Atari 2600 – clearly lacked the hardware capabilities to deliver anything approaching a decent conversion, while the Commodore 64 version by Binary Design, the first version I played as a child, was so bad that the developers included what was tantamount to an apology in the box!

Not understanding anything about coding or hardware at the time, my childhood self couldn’t understand why there was such a gulf between the C64 and arcade versions, and the embitterment I suffered at the hands of this conversion lasted for many years to come.

Even the power of the 16-bit platforms did precious little in delivering a decent conversion of the game. Similarly terrible were the Amiga and Atari ST versions, featuring graphics that looked like they’d been created with wax crayons, and lacking most of the gameplay features to boot.

Nintendo had the right idea when it created a game based on the license for it’s 8-bit NES console – rather than try to recreate the arcade experience, the developers distilled the essence of what made the game a success, then created a game that both played to the machine’s strengths, and worked within it’s limitations. As accomplished as it might have been, it strays too far from the arcade version to be considered a true conversion.

Perhaps the most accomplished of all the attempts to bring the arcade game to the home market was the Mega Drive port, developed by Telegames and published in 1993. Thanks to the consoles 68000 CPU and 16-bit graphical capabilities, not only does it look a lot like the arcade version, it includes just about all of the fighting moves and gameplay features as well.

Unfortunately, in a world dominated by Capcom’s CPS1 and CPS2-powered brawlers, Double Dragon seemed rather archaic in comparison, and had long been superseded by superior fighting games, including Sega’s own Streets of Rage franchise. Even so, it remains what is possibly the most accurate conversion of the game for a home platform of the time.

Before wrapping up, this retrospective wouldn’t be complete if I didn’t at least mention the toe-curling horror that is the Double Dragon movie – long before Uwe Boll started butchering video games in the name of Hollywood cinema, this remains one of the worst game-to-movie adaptations of all time!

Starring Scott Wolf (Party of Five) and Robert Patrick (Terminator 2), the script takes the feather-light premise of a side-scrolling brawler, then tries to introduce a doomsday plot involving a magical medallion that can bestow magical powers on the wearer; the only true talent in the whole sorry affair is Mark Dacascos, an experienced martial artist on and off screen, but even he could do little to save this straight-to-video abomination.

Although the quality of the home conversions and movie were equally dire, the reason I discuss them at all is not to besmirch the memory of the series in anyway; quite the opposite in fact. Their existence serves to highlight just how significant the original Double Dragon arcade game had been – you only need look at the recent Double Dragon Neon to realise that the franchise is as synonymous with 1980s popular culture as as much as it is a video game.

The truth is, very few games continue to enjoy the same enduring appeal as Double Dragon. Atlus developed a truly excellent reboot in the form of Double Dragon Advance for the Game Boy Advance – an example of a remake done right – and is the subject of numerous fan-based titles and indie projects.

Sometimes it’s difficult to put your finger on exactly what made a game so great, but as far as I’m concerned, Technos really did manage to capture lightning in a bottle. It remains one of the purest, and, in my opinion, best examples of the beat ‘em up genre: highly recommended!

1 Response

How one’s experience changes perceptions! Never having seen the original arcade game, which for some reason didn’t make it to these shores, unlike other famous (and less so) titles, all I had was the Spectrum port. Which was slow as molasses, but featured a surprising amount of moves, along with various weapons and even barrel throwing. So while it wasn’t exactly my favorite, it’s one game for the good old machine that I definitely remember. Good times!